There were many boons to be gained by associating with Jenna. First off, she had a wealth of information which was similar, or perhaps greater than Drak’Thul. Now, he wasn’t one to cast the stone if you lacked such, and he recognized that his partner was tremendously useful, but it was indeed useful. Second, her palace. She had houses everywhere across the dimensions, or so she had told. And as her subordinate (Trystan refused to be called minion), he benefitted from basic amenities. Basic amenities was perhaps the wrong formulation, given the absolutely ostentatious lifestyle she seemed to live.
Trystan was relaxing in the guest room, listening to the duet sung by a pair of Crooning Parrots, a rare species which grew in another, tropical dimension. The fact that she had brought them here, and that she possessed such pairs in all of her many living quarters was another indication of her wealth and connections.
Trystan was lying in his king-size bed, his skull comfortably resting against the plush pillow. It was beyond bizarre to be feeling relaxed and warm, since he did not have any sensory apparatus. However, he dealt with it quite well, all things considered. Take everything in stride, that was the motto he lived by. You had to be flexible in life. If his ancestors had not adapted to their changing environment, he wouldn’t have been there to ponder on it. Life had a knack for adapting.
Did that make him weird?
Trystan did not know. It had certainly spooked his former wife enough to drive her away. Among other reasons.
Fuck, now he was reminiscing, memories flowing back as Trystan stared out the window. It was a clear night like this one when it happened.
His day had been terrible. He had been stuck on a problem whose complexity was beyond common measure. It was eleven when he left the office and by midnight he got home. He took a cab. The driver was a chatterbox, which added to his migraine.
His wife, Jane, was standing in front of the house, a suitcase on either side, set on the ground. He told the driver to stay there, then left the cab. A few hurried steps brought him in front of his wife, who had been standing with her hands on her hips, a scowl on her face.
Trystan observed her for a few seconds.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s not obvious? I’m leaving.” Her voice was toneless. Dead.
Trystan fought to repress an eye roll; he barely managed to do it. “Why, I meant.”
“W… Why?” Her expression morphed into a myriad of feelings, disbelief, anger, despair. Then, hurt. So much hurt something squeezed uncomfortably inside his chest.
“You dare ask me why? Do you know how many we spoke in the last two weeks—no—two months? I could count them on one hand and still have fingers remaining. For Christ’s sake, it’s like you’ve forgotten I even exist! It’s always ‘too tired, let’s speak about that tomorrow.’ Every single fucking day! It’s no wonder I’ve—.” Then, she shut her mouth and looked down.
“You’ve what?” Trystan probed.
Her eyes, which had been avoiding his from shame, or so he thought when he pondered on it later, were blazing when she raised them again, “I’ve cheated on you! Because you are never here! Because I’m sick and tired of it all!”
Trystan froze for the briefest of moments before walking inside the house, whose door was still ajar.
“I see,” he said calmly. The signs had been obvious, he had just wondered when she would admit it. He removed his suit and put it on the coat rack. His tie was much too tight, he thought tiredly as he undid it.
“You … see? Is that all you have to say?!” She screamed with a seething anger which reminded him of the Erinyes.
Trystan winced. His headache had been killing him for some time now, and it was now reaching a boiling point.
“Come inside. We can sort it out tomorrow,” he said rationally. A good night of sleep, and he would be fresh enough to tackle any problem, including this one.
She laughed brokenly. Raking a hand through her hair, she asked shakily “You don’t even realize it, do you? Are you even human?”
Then she slammed the door.
She would have laughed, had she seen how inhuman—literally—he had become.
Damn it all. He couldn’t sleep now. Springing to his feet, he paced across the room, the corridors and the stairway. His steps brought him to the music room, from whence a soft melody was steadily rising and falling. There, Trystan found Jenna playing the piano with a mastery of the instrument bordering on prodigal. He could only see her back from his position, so he had no idea what she was thinking while she played.
“Is it surprising?” Jenna asked softly without looking back and without stopping.
Trystan mulled the answer over before answering, “Not really. Where I come from, people with aristocratic background tend to be well-versed in arts. Painting, music, and so on.”
She laughed drily and answered tersely, “I am as far from nobility as can be. I…” she hesitated for a split second, “was born in squalor, from the union of a petty thug and a lowly servant maid.” The music got darker as she spoke, much more turbulent and conflicted. She pressed harder on the keys.
“My mother had her blood drunk until death ensued by her master, a Noble Vampire.” She spat the name like it was the vilest poison in the universe. The melody turned violent. If before, it was a soothing wave, now it was a furious tide.
“My father died trying to get revenge on this cunt. He got beheaded and they impaled his head on a pike, just in front of the castle. Awful. Then, I became nothing. Too young to work, too old and vicious to be adopted. I had to resort to thievery to avoid starving to death. But it all changed when the Tournament started.” Here, the melody turned deceptively calm, a shiver of water on moss, as Verlaine would have said.
“What is this tournament?” Trystan asked, perplexed.
She slammed her hands on the keys, making a horrendous, disharmonious sound echo in the room. She rose from her bench and walked toward him with purposeful strides. Gesturing grandly, she extolled its virtues, “Everything! It is the lifeblood of the multiverse. A chance to rise beyond your station. Leaving in the dust your shitty past. You know, you’ll be taking part in the next Tournament. And you’re going to win. I expect nothing but the best, after all.” She sniffed haughtily, her hands on her hips.
“And what does it consist in, this competition?” Trystan rephrased the question, as she had so obviously missed the point.
“It’s a job competition. You will compete with other personalities from the multiverse; some of them coming from this dimension. What’s your job, by the way?”
“I’m an engineer,” In this life and the previous life, that’s what he had been.
She eyed him up and down, dubiousness filling her gaze. He clacked his jaw angrily.
“Whatever. The important thing is this: there are two steps. Peer review and inter-job ranking. Peer review is really straightforward. You are given a task which you need to accomplish before a panel of experts renowned in their field. For instance, for a knight, it could be defeating a strong enemy while protecting somebody. For a rogue, stealing a treasure. For a scientist … solving a riddle or inventing something, perhaps? At the end of the day, you are given a rating out of a hundred. The highest, the better. Inter-job ranking is pretty much self-explanatory.”
“I expected something… Much bloodier, to tell you the truth,” Trystan admitted.
“This Tournament has been designed to scout out rising stars. It would defeat the purpose to make the recruits kill each other. It remains a tough competition, nonetheless. Plus, from time to time, attempts at sabotage do happen. And, by sabotage I meant killing the competitors,” Jenna answered.
Trystan hummed. This heralded nothing good. Trystan had confidence in his know-how and knowledge though, thus did not believe he would fare poorly against the competition. Plus, there was always this excitement at being intellectually stimulated. No, the only element to be wary of was the sabotaging part.
After all, his number of spells was quite limited. Furthermore, those he did possess might not be up to par, if compared to the standard other spellcasters might have. As it was, he had no certitude he would be able to survive a hostile encounter. In that regard, the odds were not looking good.
Trystan sighed. His shoulder blades, which had been regenerated after the fight, rose and fell sharply.
“This means I just have to win and live to bask in the glory, right?” KISS in action.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Jenna smirked, a glint in her eyes as her lips curled into a smirk, “Precisely.”
Days went by quickly, with Jenna instructing Trystan on the various aspects of the intermediate skeleton mage and how he could potentially use his class variation. In exchange, Trystan taught her science, philosophy, and poetry. She had a curious mind and was quick on the uptake, both traits which appealed greatly to Trystan.
Their daily job training got interrupted by a sudden presence in their living room, comfortably seated in an armchair, their fingers drumming against the armrests.
Jenna tensed immediately, “What brings you here, Sanah?”
Sanah had a dumbfounded look, his hair turning from blue to green. “Are you being dense on purpose? I’m here to accompany the candidate to the Tournament.”
Her cautious gaze turned murderous, “I can assure you my intellectual faculties are high enough; certainly higher than yours, might I add. I believe it is my role, as his master, to bring him there.”
Sanah barked a sharp laugh, his hands crushing the armrests, grinding the noble wood to dust, “Bwahaha, naïve, naïve! As his patron, you can’t intervene. So just stay there like the good girl you are and wait for the results,” he spat.
Jenna growled, “Last time I checked, there was no such law—”
“There is now,” Sanah said with finality, his tone brooking no argument. A hot, blazing red aura flared to life, encompassing the whole room. It was exuded by Sanah, who rose to his feet and leveled a heated stare at Jenna.
Jenna flinched when the wave of heat hit her. She countered it by letting her own dark aura spread out, a vicious miasma seeking to smother all life in the vicinity.
Trystan could have sworn he saw the auras take the appearances of a roaring lion with a crimson mane and a hissing viper with emerald green slit eyes, belonging to Sanah and Jenna respectively. As it was, he was having a hard time remaining conscious between the stifling shadow and the scorching fire. Therefore, he did not know if it was a mere delusion conjured by his feverish mind, or reality.
“That is quite enough.” An icy voice interrupted. A bone-chilling aura permeated the air. The owner of the voice pushed glasses up an aquiline nose. Azurite blue eyes observed the two shivering bodies and clattering-jawed skeleton from behind thin lenses.
“La-Lazio…” Jenna panted, her lips turning purplish from the cold. Condensation made her breath visible as she expired. Meanwhile, Sanah was swaying dangerously. The glacial aura had taken its toll on him, or so it seemed. Jenna and Sanah’s auras had dissipated as soon as the cold washed over the room.
The newcomer, Lazio, sighed. He pushed back long strands of chalk-white hair with a pale hand. The freezing feeling disappeared as fast as it came, making breathing a lot easier for everyone in the room sans Lazio.
“Honestly, this is becoming bothersome. If you cannot curb your instincts for a few minutes whenever you meet each other, I will be forced to file a report. And I. Do. Not. Like. Paperwork.”
Jenna bowed her head, her dark hair falling like a black sheet in front of her. When she spoke, the slightest tremble in her voice was audible to those who listened well, “I have no excuse. I simply got carried away. You know how I get … antsy around nobility.”
It was not your fault, though, the thought swirled in Trystan’s mind.
Sanah watched uncomprehendingly, his hair a flickering palette of colors.
Lazio watched silently, his eyes detailing Sanah surreptitiously, before focusing on Jenna once more.
“See to it that it does not happen again. Be ready to leave in one hour, skeleton. I leave the task of bringing him to the arena up to you, Sanah. I have urgent business to tend to. I apologize for any damage I caused.”
With a quick murmur, he was gone. His presence had disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
Trystan’s gaze trailed across the room. The polished marble floor was already in an advanced state of erosion. Of course, depending on the silica content, the marble was more or less resistant to the cold. The fact remained, this was pretty impressive.
“Why?” Sanah asked a single question. He looked at a complete loss as to her reasons for protecting him.
Jenna scoffed. Crossing her arms, she said, “I didn’t do it for you. There still has to be someone to take him there, and you are simply the least unpredictable variable.”
Sanah looked like he wanted to say something, though he ended up shaking his head. Glancing at Trystan, he said,
“Come, we have to leave. We’ve lost enough time.”
“Good luck for the theme of your trial,” Jenna said, “And don’t disappoint me.”
He did not have enough time to answer before he was whisked through space and ended up in a lobby, of sorts. At least, there were no side-effects to the teleportation, unless you counted the slight feeling of discomfort at the sudden change of scenery.
Sanah walked briskly. The crowd, which waiting in a long file to register at the front desk, parted like the Red Sea as he approached. Trystan followed right behind, paying close attention to the hushed whispers as they passed by.
“Hey, is it not the young Master?”
“What is he doing here?”
“Don’t look at him! You know…”
When he got to the front desk, Sanah slammed his fist on the piece of furniture to get the receptionist’s attention.
“Registering Trystan, skeleton mage from Shub something. C’mon, faster!”
The paling receptionist quickly looked through his files and stamped the right one.
“Of course, please proceed to the arena. His trial is just after the Wimpy Knight’s.”
Who the hell chooses a name like Wimpy Knight? Sanah answered his unasked question.
“The master or their representative picks the scene name. Be grateful I didn’t call you something like ‘Trystan Boner’. Bwahaha!” He laughed uproariously at his own lame joke.
Har hardy har. He still despised this nickname, which had followed him throughout his childhood and early college days. Old habits die hard, he guessed. And fuck this rainbow-haired freak for hitting uncomfortably close to the mark.
The so-called arena was a coliseum with a surface area of two acres. It stood a hundred and fifty feet tall. It was very reminiscent of the one in Rome.
Their seats were in the VIP booth, which was guarded by terrifying men and women in armor with glowing aquamarine eyes and very sharp weapons. Death Knights, Sanah explained.
Sanah plopped down on his seat, his feet propped on a footrest.
“Now, this should be good,” Sanah said, stuffing his face with some kind of food a servant had brought.
Trystan, who was standing just behind the young man, asked, “How so? With a moniker like his, I would imagine his performance to be subpar.”
“Amateur, amateur! The only reason he has stayed as a Death Knight and not evolved is simply that he’s a coward. His strength, on the other hand… Well, you should see it soon enough.”
Down in the arena, a huge amount of knights surrounded the premises, lined against the walls in orderly concentric circles.
“The Containment Legion, hoho. This year’s Tournament has really raised the bar.” A spectator to their left said, adjusting the binoculars she was using to better see the scene.
Sanah smirked but remained silent, fully focusing on the upcoming fight.
A young man stepped uncertainly inside the ring. He had a skinny fat morphology and mid-length pink hair. He was clad in faded jeans and a Tee-shirt with an … anime character saying “I’ll be strong someday!”. A nondescript sword was strapped to his hip. He nearly tumbled when he stepped on a small stone, eliciting the crowd’s hilarity and jeering.
“The Wimpy Knight, I presume?” Trystan asked, even though confirmation was superfluous.
“Not even wearing any armor? How conceited can this one be?!” An older man with a long white beard cried out, ticked off.
“It’s not that…” The lady from before answered, biting her lip, “The armor’s too heavy for him.” her head was bowed with shame. Ah, assuredly his master, then.
Somewhere off-center, a few desks were lined up, with various people in assorted gear seated in plush armchairs. Some wore shining golden armor, other much more sober clothing.
Should be the experts then, the thought hit Trystan.
Once the Wimpy Knight stood in the center of the arena, a portal materialized a few feet in front of him.
“The Jury has decided to temporarily free Zok from his prison for the duration of the fight. The Jury will only intervene if we feel that the candidate is in lethal danger. Defeat your opponent.”
Even though they were somewhat far, they heard the spokesman as clearly as if he were standing right beside them.
“Amplification magic,” Sanah said.
Expressions of distaste were on the faces of many of the gathered people.
“Scum amongst scum. Murder, arson, kin-slaying, rape… You name it, Zok’s done it. It’s impressive, really, in a twisted way,” Sanah elaborated once more. He was one of the only persons in the booth to be unperturbed by the announcement.
Out of the portal stepped a colossus of a man. A huge armored frame with a vicious-looking, serrated ax strapped to his back, that’s what Zok was.
His eyes glowed crimson behind his helmet as he took in the boy. He glanced at the Jury over his shoulder.
“That a joke?” Zok asked skeptically.
The women and men stayed silent. Zok cracked his neck, then shook his head. Focusing his attention on the pink-haired young man, he said,
“Then, so be it. Sorry, runt, I don’t have anything against you, but it looks like we need to fight. What say you?” He asked almost chivalrously.
“Fighting’s scaryyyy!” The Wimpy Knight wailed, shaking like a leaf.
The ground trembled and what Zok said next was covered by static. Many spectators looked discomforted by the noise.
“Magic overload. The amplification magic should filter out the noise soon enough. Do I really have to explain everything?” Sanah groaned.
Trystan would have raised a brow if he could. He had never asked for any explanation, though he was grateful to have gotten one.
“Looks like Zok doesn’t want to be overheard,” a sickly-looking person of very short stature said. He looked like a gnome in the Warcraft games.
Still … something had changed in the pink-haired knight. Whereas before he was slightly hunched over, now he stood ramrod straight. His hand went to grab the hilt of his sword.
Now that he had a closer look at him, the young man reminded him of someone, though he would be hard-pressed to remember who it was, and where he had seen him.
The world blurred, distracting him from this thought. The arena became splotchy, with spots of color filling his vision. Almost like he was seeing a watercolor painting.
“Aura… No, it’s not quite that. Skill manifestation? Of that level and scale...?” The bearded man said, disbelief pitched in his tone.
“Unbelievable. That is no death knight material,” the ill-looking gnome said with awe.
“Abstract Set—Painting #1: Cubism,” the Wimpy Knight enunciated clearly though his voice was but a murmur.
His figure blurred, before coming into focus again. A thin fissure appeared on the ground in front of him, spreading forth, between Zok’s feet, then all the way to the stands. It had somehow managed to avoid the Containment Legion. The fissure sped up the wall, then up the walkways separating the arranged benches.
“Better call the cleaning crew. Man, that’s going to be a pain to repair,” a middle-aged man with a curly mustache bemoaned, holding his forehead in a “woe is me” pose.
The world lost its watercolor quality. Zok’s body resembled a cubist painting. That was the best way to describe the rearrangement of the body parts which only clung together for a second before falling to the ground in a messy pile.
“Why did Zok not move?” A curious voice asked.
“It’s not that he did not move. He tried to escape but he was caught. A prisoner in his own body. A painting can’t escape its frame, after all,” Sanah mused aloud.
Meanwhile, the Jury discussed the events. Some shook their head, others nodded. Finally, they came to a consensus.
The spokesman from the Jury got up and said, “Minus five points for the straightforwardness of the skill. Minus five points for property damage. Final score, 90. That will be all.”
Trystan was surprised, “Property damage? Is it not a little too harsh, for this small fissure?”
A great creaking sound echoed and, to Trystan’s utter disbelief, the stands collapsed in a pile of rubble. The crowd shouted out in surprise. Thankfully, every individual had a protective bubble around them, allowing them to stay afloat. The VIP booth was also intact, somehow.
Sanah guffawed, before saying mirthfully,
“Do you understand now? That’s the level of the competition.”
There was nothing Trystan could say in rebuttal.